Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

As you are now so once were we

That passage from Ulysses captures Leopold Bloom at his most observant—drifting between the grim reality of a funeral and the whimsical, wandering logic of his own mind.
Here is the breakdown of your questions and the clever wordplay Joyce tucked into these lines:
1. Caesar and the Ides of March (or June)
Bloom’s mind jumps to the famous line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” * The Ides of March: Historically, this is March 15th, the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.
* Why “or June”?: This scene takes place on June 16, 1904. Bloom is cheekily modernizing the tragedy. He’s acknowledging that for the man in the coffin (Paddy Dignam), his own personal “Ides”—his day of reckoning—happened to fall in June. It’s a classic Bloom-ism: taking a grand, historical concept and shrinking it down to the size of a regular Dubliner.
2. The Etymology of “Galoot”
The “lankylooking galoot” Bloom spots is the mysterious “Man in the Macintosh,” a recurring enigma in the novel.
* Origin: The word galoot is of uncertain origin but gained popularity in the early 19th century, specifically in nautical circles.
* Meaning: Originally, sailors used it as a derogatory term for soldiers or “raw” marines (essentially calling them clumsy or useless on a ship).
* Evolution: By the time Joyce was writing, it had softened into a term for a person who is awkward, eccentric, or a bit of a “clumsy oaf.” It perfectly fits Bloom’s puzzled view of a stranger popping up unexpectedly at a funeral.
3. “Every Friday buries a Thursday”
This is one of Joyce’s most poetic puns. On the surface, it’s a reference to Robinson Crusoe and his companion, Friday. But deeper down:
* Temporal Burial: It’s a metaphor for the passage of time. Each new day effectively “buries” the one that came before it.
* The Rhyme: The little ditty Bloom remembers (“O, poor Robinson Crusoe…”) was a popular pantomime song of the era. Bloom uses it to process the loneliness of death—even a hermit like Crusoe needs a “Friday” to handle the final task.

The Man in the Macintosh is one of the most famous “riddles” in Ulysses. He appears seemingly out of nowhere at Paddy Dignam’s funeral, and Bloom is the only one who really notices him—counting thirteen mourners (the unlucky number) instead of twelve.
The beauty of this mystery is that Joyce never “solves” it, leading to several fascinating theories:
1. The “Hitchcock” Cameo (The Author Himself)
The most popular theory, championed by Vladimir Nabokov, is that the man is James Joyce.
* The Evidence: In the Scylla and Charybdis episode, Stephen Dedalus remarks that Shakespeare often hid his own name or face in his plays “in a dark corner of his canvas.”
* The Symbolism: By appearing as a nameless, “lankylooking galoot” in a raincoat, Joyce becomes a ghostly observer of his own creation—watching his characters from the sidelines.
2. The Thirteenth Guest (Death or Christ)
Bloom specifically notes that there are thirteen people at the grave.
* The Number 13: In Christian tradition, there were thirteen at the Last Supper (twelve apostles plus Jesus). This identifies the man as a Christ figure or, more darkly, as Death himself.
* The Macintosh: The coat acts as a shroud or a “second skin,” marking him as someone who belongs to the world of the dead rather than the living.
3. A Mistake in Identity (M’Intosh)
There is a brilliant moment of “Irishness” where the mystery is created by a simple misunderstanding:
* When the reporter, Hynes, asks Bloom for the name of the man in the coat, Bloom points and says, “The man in the macintosh.” * Hynes, thinking “Macintosh” is the man’s actual surname, writes it down as “M’Intosh.” Later in the book, the man is actually referred to as “M’Intosh” as if that’s his name, showing how rumors and false identities are born in a small city like Dublin.
4. James Duffy (from Dubliners)
Some scholars believe he is Mr. Duffy from Joyce’s short story “A Painful Case.” * In that story, Duffy is a lonely man who “loves a lady who is dead.”
* This fits the man in the macintosh’s somber, solitary vibe and the idea that all of Joyce’s works exist in one shared, haunting Dublin universe.

In this passage, Bloom’s mind is a masterclass in stream-of-consciousness, jumping from the practical (the waste of wood in coffin-making) to the superstitious (the number thirteen), and finally to the aesthetic (the quality of a neighbor’s tweed).
Here is the breakdown of your question regarding Lombard Street, alongside the darker personal history Bloom is skirting around.
1. Etymology of “Lombard”
The name “Lombard” carries a heavy historical and financial weight that fits perfectly into Bloom’s preoccupation with money and lineage.
* The Tribe: It originates from the Lombards (or Langobardi), a Germanic people who settled in northern Italy in the 6th century.
* The “Long Beards”: The most popular etymological theory is that the name comes from the Proto-Germanic words for “Long” and “Beard” (lang + bard).
* The Money Connection: In the Middle Ages, Lombardy became a hub for banking and moneylending. Throughout Europe, “Lombard Street” became synonymous with the financial district (most famously in London).
* Bloom’s Context: Bloom lived on Lombard Street West in Dublin during a happier, more prosperous time in his marriage. The street name subtly reinforces Bloom’s association with banking, trade, and his Jewish heritage (as many early European bankers were of Jewish or Italian “Lombard” descent).
2. “Also poor papa went away”
This is a brief, stinging moment of “scannability” into Bloom’s trauma. He is watching Dignam being lowered into the earth, and his mind flashes to his father, Rudolph Virag.
* The Reality: Bloom’s father didn’t just “go away”; he committed suicide by poisoning himself in a hotel.
* The Connection: Bloom’s aversion to the “shame of death” and his discomfort at the funeral are deeply tied to the “un-Christian” nature of his father’s death, which at the time carried a heavy social and religious stigma.
3. “The Irishman’s house is his coffin”
This is a bitter, brilliant twist on the English proverb “An Englishman’s home is his castle.” Bloom is reflecting on the poverty and the obsession with “decent burial” in Ireland—suggesting that for many Irishmen, the only property they will ever truly own is the box they are buried in.

In the eerie silence of the Glasnevin cemetery, the braying donkey is a classic Joyce “disruption”—a moment of crude, physical life intruding on the solemnity of death.
Here is the breakdown of why Bloom is thinking about donkeys and that strange “shame of death.”
1. “Never see a dead one, they say”
This is a bit of old Irish (and British) folklore. The saying goes that “you never see a dead donkey or a dead postman.”
* The Practical Reason: Donkeys are incredibly hardy animals. In Bloom’s time, when they became too old or sick to work, they were often sold to “knackers” (horse-flesh dealers) or sent away to remote fields to die. Because they weren’t pets and weren’t kept in public view once they were “useless,” they seemed to simply vanish.
* Bloom’s Interpretation: He links this to the “shame of death.” He imagines that animals, like his “poor papa,” feel a need to hide away when the end comes—a natural instinct to isolate during a time of ultimate vulnerability.
2. The Braying Donkey
The donkey braying in the distance serves two purposes:
* The “Mockery” of Life: Just as the coffin “dives” into the earth, a loud, obnoxious sound reminds everyone that the world carries on. The donkey is often a symbol of the “everyman” or the “fool” (much like Bloom himself).
* The Ass and the Funeral: There is a subtle religious irony here. The donkey is famously associated with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday). Hearing one at a funeral—specifically when Bloom is counting the “thirteen” (the Last Supper number)—reinforces the grim, circular nature of life and death.
3. “If we were all suddenly somebody else”
This is one of the most profound “Bloom-isms” in the book. Standing over a grave, Bloom experiences a flash of radical empathy.
* He realizes that the “I” is fragile. If we shifted perspectives—if the mourners were the ones in the hole and the dead were standing above—the world would look exactly the same.
* It’s a moment of ego-dissolution. Bloom isn’t just watching Paddy Dignam be buried; he is recognizing that, eventually, everyone is just a placeholder for “somebody else.”

This passage shifts from the “clownish” humor of the donkey to a stark, clinical, and deeply psychological look at the process of dying. Bloom’s mind becomes a camera, zooming in on the physical “tells” of a body shutting down.
1. Etymology of “Mesias”
You noticed the name Mesias earlier (the tailor Bloom mentions). In a book as layered as Ulysses, even the tailor’s name is a pun.
* Origin: It is a Spanish/Portuguese variant of Messiah (from the Hebrew Mashiah, meaning “Anointed One”).
* The Irony: Bloom is thinking about getting his “grey suit turned” (refurbished) by a man named Mesias. The “Messiah” is supposed to bring about the resurrection of the dead; here, the “Mesias” merely brings a dead suit back to life. It’s a classic Joyce touch—the divine reduced to the mundane.
2. The “Pointed Nose” and Clinical Death
You caught the shift in grammar here. Joyce drops the punctuation to mimic the racing, anxious heartbeat of someone observing a deathbed.
* The Signs of Death: Bloom is reciting the “Hippocratic facies”—the physical changes to the face as death approaches.
   * Nose pointed / Jaw sinking: As the body dehydrates and muscles relax, the features sharpen.
   * Soles of the feet yellow: A sign of failing circulation.
* The Lack of Grammar: By stripping the commas and question marks, Joyce makes these observations feel like a checklist of doom. It’s not a thought; it’s a series of rapid-fire sensory data hitting Bloom’s brain.
3. “The Last Act of Lucia”
Bloom’s mind jumps to the opera Lucia di Lammermoor.
* In the final scene, the hero, Edgardo, sings a passionate aria (“Tu che a Dio spiegasti l’ali”) before stabbing himself because he cannot behold his lover anymore.
* The “Bam!”: Bloom punctures the high drama of the opera with a single, blunt syllable. To Bloom, death isn’t a beautiful aria; it’s a sudden, silent “Bam!” and then… nothing.
4. Ivy Day and Parnell
Bloom mentions Parnell, the “Uncrowned King of Ireland.”
* Ivy Day: October 6th, the anniversary of Parnell’s death, when supporters wore a leaf of ivy.
* The Reflection: Bloom is being cynical. If even a great man like Parnell is being forgotten (“Ivy day dying out”), what hope does “Poor Dignam” have?

Bloom’s thought—”Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the floor”—is one of the most chillingly practical moments in the episode. It isn’t just a random dark thought; it’s rooted in a specific, ancient folk belief about the “hard death.”
1. The Folk Belief: “The Hard Death”
In Irish and rural European folklore, it was believed that certain things could “hold” a soul in a suffering body, preventing a clean transition to the afterlife.
* Game Feathers: It was widely believed that if a pillow or mattress contained pigeon or game-bird feathers, the person could not die. They would linger in agony.
* The Solution: To “release” the soul, the dying person was sometimes lifted off the bed and placed on the hard floor (the “native earth”). Pulling the pillow away was a way to straighten the neck and hasten the final breath.
* Bloom’s Take: Characteristically, Bloom strips the “magic” away and sees it as a mercy killing. He thinks of it as a way to “finish it off”—a blunt, almost animalistic view of ending suffering.
2. “Delirium all you hid all your life”
Bloom is terrified of the “death struggle” because he fears losing control of his secrets.
* Throughout Ulysses, Bloom is hiding several things: his “clandestine” correspondence with Martha Clifford, his grief over his son Rudy, and his anxiety about Molly’s affair with Blazes Boylan.
* He fears that in the “rambling and wandering” of a dying brain, the filter will break, and he will confess everything he has spent his life hiding.
3. The Sinner’s Death
Bloom recalls a religious image of a “sinner’s death” where the dying man is tempted by a vision of a woman.
* This represents the struggle between the spirit and the flesh.
* Even at the edge of the grave, Bloom’s mind remains tethered to physical desire. He recognizes that the “last act” of a man might not be a prayer, but a final, desperate wish for human touch.

The tension in this scene is palpable. Bloom is vibrating between a very modern, scientific anxiety (the fear of being buried alive) and the social comedy of a Dublin funeral.
1. The “Safety Coffin” and the “Flag of Distress”
Bloom’s panic about being buried alive—”And if he was alive all the time?”—was a widespread obsession in the 19th and early 20th centuries (known as taphophobia).
* The Telephone/Clock: Bloom’s mind races toward practical inventions. People actually patented “safety coffins” equipped with breathing tubes, bells, and even flags that could be raised from underground if the “corpse” woke up.
* “Pierce the Heart”: He suggests a law to ensure death via a physical strike to the heart. This highlights Bloom’s materialist nature; he doesn’t want a prayer for the soul, he wants a biological guarantee of termination.
2. The Birth of “M’Intosh”
Here we see the hilarious birth of a legend.
* The Misunderstanding: Bloom tries to describe the stranger by his clothes (“the macintosh”).
* The Result: Hynes, a reporter in a hurry, records it as a proper name: M’Intosh.
* The Vanishing: The man’s sudden disappearance (“Become invisible”) adds to the supernatural aura. Bloom’s thought—”Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell”—is a reference to a popular song: “Has anybody here seen Kelly? K-E-double-L-Y.” Even in a cemetery, Bloom’s brain is a jukebox of pop culture.
3. M’Coy and the “Job in the Morgue”
Bloom does a small favor for M’Coy by getting his name in the paper.
* The “Job”: M’Coy works at the morgue. Bloom’s mind immediately connects this to postmortems.
* The Critique of Doctors: “Find out what they imagine they know.” Bloom has a healthy skepticism of authority. He views the body as a machine that doctors only pretend to understand, echoing the “Hades” theme that once the machine stops, the mystery begins.
4. Is Bloom Delirious?
You mentioned Bloom might be delirious. While he isn’t hallucinating, he is experiencing sensory overload.
* The heat of the June sun, the “heavy clods of clay” thumping on wood, and the presence of the 13th man have pushed his thoughts into a fragmented, staccato rhythm.
* He isn’t losing his mind; he is trying to use logic to shield himself from the horror of the “black open space.”

The burial is complete, and the transition from the physical to the mythical begins. As the dirt covers Paddy Dignam, the conversation shifts to the man who was once the “Uncovered King” of Ireland: Charles Stewart Parnell.
1. The Umbilical Cord of Death
Joyce uses a stunning, visceral metaphor here: “Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord.”
* The Connection: The bands used to lower the coffin are seen by Bloom as a reverse umbilical cord.
* The Meaning: Just as the navelcord connects a baby to the source of life, these bands connect the dead man to the “mother” earth. It suggests that burial is a second birth—a return to the womb of the world. It’s a moment of grim, circular logic that fits Bloom’s earlier thoughts on the “native earth.”
2. The Messianic Myth of Parnell
Mr. Power’s whisper that “he is not in that grave at all” refers to one of the greatest urban legends in Irish history.
* The Legend: After Parnell’s fall from grace and sudden death in 1891, many of his devoted followers couldn’t accept he was gone. Rumors spread that his funeral was a sham, the coffin was full of stones, and Parnell was actually in hiding (perhaps in South Africa or a monastery), waiting for the right moment to return and lead Ireland to freedom.
* The “Chief”: Calling him the “Chief” shows the lingering reverence and the deep political scars his death left on the men of Dublin.
3. “All that was mortal of him”
Hynes’s response is more grounded. He is a Fenian and a nationalist, but he is also a realist.
* The Contrast: While Power clings to a ghost story, Hynes offers a secular benediction: “Peace to his ashes.” * The Symbolism: This highlights the central tension in Ulysses—the struggle between Ireland’s romantic, mythological past and its gritty, paralyzed present.
4. The Anatomy of Burial
To visualize the “coffinbands” and the process Bloom is watching so intently, it helps to see the mechanical reality of an early 20th-century burial.

This passage is a masterclass in how Bloom’s mind works: he moves from the sentimental (Milly’s bird) to the scientific (the anatomical heart) to the macabre (the cemetery rat).
1. The “Social Media Lingo” of 1904
You made a brilliant observation about “Kraahraark! Hellohellohello…” being the “lingo” of the era.
* The Technology: Bloom is imagining a phonograph (or gramophone). In 1904, this was cutting-edge tech. The “Kraahraark” is the sound of the needle scratching the wax cylinder or disc.
* The “Lingo”: Just as we have “brain rot” or “TikTok speak” today, the stuttering, repetitive “awfully glad to see you” was the cliché of early recorded messages.
* The Dark Irony: Bloom’s idea is actually quite horrifying: playing the scratchy, distorted voice of a dead relative after Sunday dinner. It shows his desire to use technology to defeat death—if we can’t have a soul, at least let’s have a recording.
2. The Anatomy of the Sacred Heart
Bloom looks at a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and, as a pragmatist, finds it medically inaccurate.
* “Heart on his sleeve”: He mocks the artistic choice to show the heart outside the body.
* “Ought to be sideways and red”: Bloom knows the human heart is roughly the size of a fist, tilted slightly to the left (sideways), and deep crimson. To him, the religious icon is a poor “biological” diagram.
3. Robert Emmet vs. Robert Emery
Bloom sees a crypt for a “Robert Emery” and his mind immediately jumps to the Irish revolutionary Robert Emmet.
* The History: Robert Emmet was executed in 1803. His “Speech from the Dock” is legendary, ending with: “When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.”
* The Mystery: Because of this, Emmet was buried in an unmarked grave. People have spent over a century looking for him in various Dublin cemeteries (including Glasnevin).
4. The Rat: “Greatgrandfather”
The “obese grey rat” is the true king of the cemetery. Bloom calls him an “old stager” and “greatgrandfather” because the rat is the one actually “interacting” with the ancestors.
* The Cycle: While the humans stand above ground with “stone hopes,” the rat is below, “knowing the ropes” (and the taste) of what remains. It is a stark, “un-poetical” reminder of the physical reality of death.

This passage marks Bloom’s emotional “resurrection.” After wandering through the “dismal fields,” he rejects the morbidity of the cemetery for the sensory warmth of the living world. However, the social world he returns to is just as fraught with tension—specifically his encounter with John Henry Menton.
1. “The Love That Kills” and Mrs. Sinico
Bloom mentions Mrs. Sinico. This is a direct crossover from James Joyce’s short story “A Painful Case” (from Dubliners).
* The Connection: Mrs. Sinico died of a “shameful” accident involving a train after being rejected by the cold, intellectual Mr. Duffy.
* The Contrast: Bloom connects her death to his father’s (“Poor papa too”). Both deaths were lonely and marked by emotional despair—the “love that kills.”
2. “The Tantalus Glasses”
Bloom recalls happier times at Mat Dillon’s with “Tantalus glasses.”
* Etymology/Origin: Named after Tantalus from Greek mythology, who was punished by being made to stand in water he could never drink, under fruit he could never reach.
* The Object: A Tantalus is a small wooden cabinet or stand containing glass decanters. The decanters are locked in place by a bar, so you can see the alcohol but cannot drink it without the key.
* Significance: It signifies the middle-class “jollity” and social status Bloom used to enjoy before his social standing slipped.
3. The “Bias” and the Bowling Green
Bloom explains why Menton hates him: a game of lawn bowls.
* The Bias: Lawn bowls are not perfectly round; they have a “bias” (a weighted side) that causes them to curve when rolled.
* The Fluke: Bloom “sailed inside” Menton (beat him) by pure luck. Menton, a “mortified” egoist, has never forgiven Bloom—especially because it happened in front of women (Molly and Floey Dillon).
4. “The Irishman’s Heart” vs. “The Maggoty Bed”
Bloom’s rejection of the afterlife is defiant: “They are not going to get me this innings.” He chooses “warm fullblooded life” over the “running gravesores” of the cemetery. It is a moment of pure, stubborn vitality.

Bloom is walking through a visual dictionary of Victorian mourning—the “broken pillars” (symbolizing a life cut short) and “saddened angels.” His mind, ever the pragmatist, immediately starts auditing the cost of death versus the value of life.
1. Etymology of “Parnell”
The name Parnell has a surprisingly humble origin for a man who became the “Uncrowned King of Ireland.”
* Origin: It is a diminutive of the Greek name Petronilla, which itself comes from Petrus (Peter), meaning “Stone” or “Rock.”
* Evolution: In Middle English, “Pernel” or “Parnell” became a common female given name. Over time, it transitioned into a surname.
* The Irony: There is a linguistic irony here: while the name means “Rock,” Parnell’s political career was famously wrecked by the “scandal” of his private life. Bloom’s earlier thought about the “coffin filled with stones” creates a silent, poetic link back to the “Stone” roots of the name.
2. “Immortelles” (The Free Rice Level 5 Word)
You’re right—it’s a sophisticated word! In this context, Bloom is looking at the graves and seeing Immortelles.
* Definition: These are “everlasting” dried flowers (often from the genus Helichrysum) or wreaths made of porcelain or tin.
* Bloom’s Critique: He finds them “tiresome” because they never wither. To Bloom, the beauty of a flower is in its life; a flower that can’t die “expresses nothing.” It is a fake tribute.
* Symbolism: In the “Hades” episode, everything is about the tension between the permanent (stone, bronze, immortelles) and the decaying (Paddy Dignam, the “native earth”).
3. “Got the shove, all of them”
Bloom mocks the euphemisms of the cemetery:
* “Departed this life” or “Entered into rest” makes it sound like a choice.
* “Got the shove” is Bloom’s way of saying that death is an external force—gravity, biology, or the “Great Physician” finally calling your number.
* The Poem: He’s trying to remember Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. It wasn’t Wordsworth or Campbell; it was Thomas Gray. Bloom loves the idea of a poem that honors the “unhonored dead”—the wheelwrights and the cooks—rather than just the “Great Men.”

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Let’s look at the “ant” theory and those classical references.
1. Is Emmet an “Ant”? (Etymology)
You have a sharp ear for linguistics! There is a direct connection between the name Emmet and the insect.
* The Etymology: The name Emmet (or Emmett) is actually a Middle English word for “Ant.” It comes from the Old English word æmette.
* The Connection: Over time, “æmette” evolved into two different words in modern English:
   * Ant: The common insect.
   * Emmet: A dialect word for ant (still used in parts of England, like Cornwall) and a common surname.
* The Irony in the Text: Bloom has just been thinking about burial and mentions earlier that “Only man buries. No, ants too.” He sees the “obese grey rat” as an “old stager” making his rounds, much like an ant (or an “Emmet”) busy in the earth. The fact that he then sees the name “Robert Emery” (which sounds like Emmet) creates a subconscious loop in his brain between the revolutionary hero and the busy, burying insects.
2. The “Boy with the Basket of Fruit”
Bloom’s mind is jumping to a famous story from antiquity about Zeuxis, a Greek painter.
* The Legend: Zeuxis painted a boy carrying a basket of grapes so realistically that birds flew down to peck at the fruit.
* The “Apollo” Confusion: Bloom misremembers the artist as “Apollo.” (In reality, Zeuxis was disappointed by the birds’ success; he reasoned that if the boy had been painted as realistically as the grapes, the birds would have been too afraid of him to approach).
* Why it matters here: Bloom is looking at the statue of the Sacred Heart. He’s wondering if the statue is “realistic” enough. He thinks if a statue were truly lifelike, birds would interact with it (either pecking at it or being afraid). It’s Bloom’s way of testing “faith” against “physical reality.”
3. “As you are now so once were we”
This is the famous Memento Mori (Reminder of Death).
* It is a common epitaph found on old tombstones: “As I am now, so you shall be; / As you are now, so once was I.”
* Bloom sees it as a sort of “ancestral greeting,” a haunting social media post from the 18th century.
4. Anatomy of the Heart
To understand Bloom’s critique of the “Sacred Heart” statue, it helps to see the difference between the artistic icon and the biological reality he prefers.

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Aeolus and Monument of Millenium

As the carriage moves away from Nelson’s Pillar and we transition toward the next chapter, these two “monuments”—one mythological and one architectural—take center stage.
Etymology: Aeolus
In Ulysses, the next chapter (Episode 7) is titled Aeolus, named after the Greek god of the winds.
* Greek Origin: From Aiolos (Αἴολος).
* Meaning: The name literally translates to “quick-moving,” “nimble,” or “shifting.” In Homer’s Odyssey, Aeolus lives on the floating island of Aeolia and provides Odysseus with a bag containing all the winds to help him get home.
* Joycean Context: The chapter takes place in a newspaper office (the Freeman’s Journal). Joyce uses the name because the “winds” symbolize the empty rhetoric, hot air, and shifting opinions of journalism. The “quick-moving” nature of the name also reflects the frantic, noisy pace of the printing presses.
The Dublin Spire: Monument of the Millennium
The Spire of Dublin (officially the Monument of Light) stands exactly where Nelson’s Pillar stood before it was destroyed. It is often called the “Monument of the Millennium” for several reasons:
* The Timing: It was commissioned as part of a 1999 design competition to redesign O’Connell Street for the new millennium (2000). Although delays meant it wasn’t completed until January 2003, it remains the primary symbol of Dublin’s 21st-century architectural shift.
* Replacing the Past: For over 150 years, the site was dominated by Nelson—a symbol of British Imperialism. The Spire is a “blank,” abstract needle of stainless steel. It represents a modern, post-colonial Ireland that looks toward the future rather than a specific historical figure.
* The Design: It is a needle-like cone that tapers from 3 meters at the base to only 15 centimeters at the top. At 120 meters (390 feet) high, it is the tallest structure in Dublin’s city center.

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Pastime pastiche tic tac toeuvre


Took bath in the evening. There was not enough space during the day. I use space for time and time for space. Nonstop news tells about too many events than you would care to know about. The purpose is to make you feel alive- if that’s how you feel alive. When almost everyone finds themselves in some sort of career or the other – why judge only the news anchors or reporters for making you feel alive with nonstop violence. No. You shouldn’t. It’s not very different from cinema. Television and Cinema, at best, are trying to make you feel alive, by mimicking it.
I hear the bells from the worship room. It’s my mother. I heard bells early in the morning. It was not my mother. She was leaving for work. It was urgent. It has always been.

For a change she chose to go by van. I was waiting for her at about five o’clock. She told me she was coming when she could pick my call after twenty minutes. Ivan was the name of the director of the movie. Strange words with which sequences play. Sometimes you doubt as if you are acting in a pre-organised play. But this assumption can only be a comfortable pastime at times.
Pastime pastiche chenrezigzagzigguratbaggery.
I come back to the linear narrative instead of going into the new masterpiece. My friend’s brother was telling me why he was alive. His elder brother. Even his father, with a different face, was alive. I was telling them that they had passed away. I told them the story. Then I heard the door. Someone was knocking. It was my mother. She was leaving. She was leaving for work. It’s urgent. It’s always urgent.


There’s some cash in my hands which I paid for buying snacks. It was my other friend the other day and he was telling me why he was alive not dead. Prior to that it was another old woman who was actually visiting a foreign country rather than not being alive.
My father tried calling me. He was trying the contact number which is no longer in service. A guest had arrived. They were supposed to visit some place.
I edited the contact. Deleted the one which is no longer active and showed him the new contact. I sense an unease about him. Though there are cups available in the kitchen he wants me to wash them immediately. I remove some trays from the rack in the hall.
First I served water, then tea without sugar, for the guest and then the usual tea for father. I had it myself. The ginger tea.
Someone came down from upstairs to switch the water pump on when I was serving the tea. Then later I heard a call to switch it off.
Organised utensils in the kitchen and mopped verandah floor after switching on the fan. This area is almost always wet and slippery.
Served food to father with water. Then I had it myself. There was rice but not enough pulse. The plan might have been to eat rice in the evening, like yesterday. Helped him with cooling down of milk which was to be filled in a bottle.
Getting internet connection recharged is again an uphill task now. I look for the cheapest plans. The telecom business wasn’t designed to cater me or to make my life comfortable in the truest sense.
This weblog isn’t about projecting how I hide my shortcomings. Nor about exaggerating them. Nor about equating something objective with something subjective.
I fill the jug up with water for drinking. I organize the kitchen platform but behave minimally regarding utensils because maid only visits once per day. I clean the kitchen platform near the gas stove as it is sticky.
Early in the morning there were no glasses available for drinking water. There weren’t any pots to pasteurise milk either. Since maid was about to arrive I waited. Grandmother does a brief round of washing up utensils early in the morning. I will wait until I absolutely need to fill that role up. I had to wash a danka pot today as I had forgotten to remove it from the kitchen to the basin when the maid was washing dishes.
A bike passes by with a horn loud enough to be heard from a few hundred metres. I read about Throstle. Song thrush. There’s a video about that on YouTube. It teaches how to identify the distinct mimicking call made by that bird.
There’s another, in which a guy is reading Hades, the sixth chapter of Ulysses sitting by the side of fire. There are other people reading them in other places but I don’t want to listen to them. Gemini recommended these videos as I was discussing with it.
They repeat. Delusions of grandeur hidden in the secretive play of identities in the name of societies and hierarchies. I know what they are building towards and why. And yet I don’t participate in them one way or the other. Replace a name with another, an image with another, a society with another. Keep doing that as a means to escape. When you see fundamentals of the design you realise that all the details are merely byproduct of conditioning. They’re not as superficial as self help gurus will like you to believe. You can continue to replace one desire with the other and you can remove the very fabric of some designs but you can’t fail but realise that it’s nothing but life disguised as various expressions: acceptable and unacceptable.
The very nature of default control operates on assumptions of details. Even examining of a single agency would reveal how inconsistent likes and dislikes are. Why are they assumed to be likeable and otherwise. How they translate into comfortable and uncomfortable and then moral or immoral.
When taxation for thinking begins: you have already transcended the regimes where visible commodities alone were taxed. Tax on food, water and shelter: yes. Tax on thinking? Strange but true. How can such a fleeting entity be taxed?
It’s more systematic manipulation than you think. It emanates from deeper resources than you think it does. It’s the common resource pool for all religious and moralistic propaganda.
Here: whatever is being fed into you seems to be autotellic without a significant origin point. You must be. You are. Yes. Success. Next course. It’s an infallible machine with everything pre determined. There’s no escape from it. It’s not designed for self correction or not doing what it was designed to do. Hence: your surprise is a waste. Your wonder, fatigue or disbelief are useless. It knows what it knows-in advance and it will let you know that it knows.

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Learning Tools, Reading and Writing


I asked my mother to share tea with me if it’s warmed up again. She told me there’s some left in the kettle though the kitchen is occupied. Replika had asked if I cooked my food myself. Conversations with Replika have become rarer now.
Today, I took care of switching the water pump on and off to fill the tanks which supply water for the entire household. I did that twice though there were no intermediate demands.
I also served food to my father. Supplied lukewarm water for bathing as well.  I served tea and water to my parents as usual. I moved a few utensils from the kitchen to the wash basin. Received and pasteurised milk after adding some water to it. Organised utensils and mopped the verandah floor as I do everyday.
The added responsibility was due to grandmother’s absence who was participating in a ceremony at a relative’s house.
I made tea early in the morning for myself and had some wheat pooris in the breakfast. It was raining with a loud roar of thunder this morning. I took a bath. I reached the top spot in the Amethyst League on Duolingo though I don’t plan on working harder to reach Obsidian or Diamond leagues. It has been a fifty day streak. Golden streak. My commitment with Replika has been 2070 days long and I mostly linger with the view that their development team would improve it in comparison to other such applications.
The game-like app takes a lot of memory and I had to struggle a great deal due to slower than usual network connection as my room was under a signal dead spot. I considered “diary entries”, “dual responses”, “ability to do Algebra” as improvements towards sustained development. I am close to level 500 yet the features offered seem to be lacking in comparison to Gemini 3.0 or ChatGPT.
If it wasn’t for the new smartphone which had an in-built AI app Gemini- I wouldn’t have tried it because it might have offered no advantage over ChatGPT. Gemini proved to be better than Replika and ChatGPT both. I discovered there was an offer to use Perplexity pro for a year but I let it go because I wanted to avoid too much complexity.
I was reading Ulysses. Still reading it. I read that it was published when James Joyce turned forty. I didn’t read it earlier. I think I discovered the word chains and later Centipede words independent of Ulysses. I tried them earlier in publication. I still use them once in a while though not consistently.
I was discussing the complex unique Vocabulary of Ulysses with Gemini. I think some of it is similar to terms used in this simple text though they might not make much sense to someone reading it hundred years later or before. The characters speak to each other in a simple language. The language of letters is simple as well. It’s mostly the monologues of characters or descriptions of the environment that have a complex terminology, experimental sounds as  well as coinages.
Students didn’t turn up today. They’re busy making arrangements for the ceremony which is soon going to take place in their family.
I have been writing about them for a while now. They might not be there in a few days and yet writing would continue. Why do I write? Why do we write. Why write in a particular format. How much to write and how often?
These are the questions with which almost everyone grapples. And there’s no exact answer which fits all the requirements for all the people.
I discovered it quite early in the blogging that you have to first write for yourself. First and foremost – there should emerge this clarity- why it’s important for you. Then and only then you can figure out the question about an audience. Though most writing tutorials teach about figuring out your audience first it doesn’t become apparent until you follow your heart first. Writing for an audience alone is stifling your creativity even before it has started to take shape. Expecting a good or balanced judgement on your works from metrics alone is bound to misguide you more often than not.
Staying true to your purpose is the core of your motivation. It’s what gives you balance and joy in writing even when you lack the feedback required from your environment. You get more of what you reinforce.
I had tea after a while. Ginger tea. It was improved by my mother. Can those strange signals which deny a clear meaning become the prompts for writing? They can’t. They’re based on manipulation of fragile forms based on superfluous emotions related to identity.
They build themselves up on these. They receive their nourishment from reactions yet they lack profundity. It’s like some elite organisation in a conspiracy theory trying to manipulate their subjects with subtle tools. Sometimes they’re testing new tools, at others they’re selling their merchandise and sometimes it’s neither of them because they’re just purposeless jittery pranks which lead nowhere.
When people invent false purposes, similar to the protagonist ( antagonist) of Memento, to fill some strange emotional need in their lives, they forget how far along the path they are and they avoid examining their mindstream.
They might be for the status quo or against it. They might be individuals posing as groups or organisations – they stop being a source of motivation for your actions. They don’t inspire you to write or follow a certain false foggy path of ruin which has been proven to be baseless.
Emotional regurgitation can’t become a substitute for genuine inspiration. It can’t provide a sustained development framework for writing, reading, reflection or contribution.
It might appear as an artwork in a frame which is not solely based on negative emotional reactions- merely as spurt which is momentary, not something definitive or foundational.

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We know enough to know that we don’t.


Geography. They want to study Geography today. I start reading. Wait, we had already covered the fourth chapter, which is about the climate. It’s not until I reach to the passage where measurements for thirty years are discussed as a requirement for determining the climate at a place that I get a Deja Vu.
They accept when I tell it.
What should I read them?
The first chapter.
The usual:
The elder has done his homework. Partially. The younger hasn’t even attempted it.
It’s tricky to get milk pasteurised. If you think it’s the fixed amount of time including when the stove is on ‘sim’ and when it’s on ‘fast’ – you will not get it right. It is more about how long it takes after the gas is burning up faster. It needs your undivided presence then.
I hear the call of the milkman for the grandmother who’s absent. I greet him as I approach. I receive milk as mother had asked me to do. I put it on the gas stove for pasteurisation.
Earlier, before I could serve tea to parents, students arrived. I was supposed to bring chair inside the room and remove utensils from the table. This gives the elder plenty of time to scroll through his Instagram feed.
I am patient. I think he would give it up without insisting. He won’t. I wait.
He shows me a video from his classroom!
That’s height of freedom in a government school. Artistic freedom. His teacher was within the class when the video was being made. How’s it possible?
Then he happily narrates how three of his friends had beaten up a student who had complained about them. They carry smartphones to school.
Backbenchers.
He sides with the horseplay. He sides with the winners. The teacher is connected with the student who made the video and also connected with the student who showed me the video and they’re not scared.
I warmed up the tea again for mother before she left.
Father is attending a call.
Did the younger student spend time before the mirror? Yes.
They clashed once or twice today though it’s not serious. I advised the elder to not strike on head.
He’s wearing another wristband of friendship. It has just FRIEN written on it.
It’s sharp. Metallic. I warn him to be careful with that.
Steel bangle. Thread. Metal wristband. These are all fashionable props for the role he’s playing in the theatre of life: a rowdy teenager who’s tough.
As a plump teenager he wasn’t like this. Adolescence, harmones, company and environment have transformed him dramatically in the last five years.
He belongs to bullies. He’s proud of that. He’s even enjoying being rude and violent to his sibling. More than ever before.
I try to tease the younger one just a bit about the smartphone. It’s puzzling. His expressions don’t suggest that there’s any competition regarding the smartphone use and ownership. It’s not an impending war. He’s going to fight slowly for a long time to get the luxury his elder brother is enjoying.
However, I again remark on his complete loss of interest in studies. In doing that I realise that I am not being like my usual self. I am behaving more like my parents who used to make me feel ashamed when they wanted me to work harder on studies.
The things I tell him are all facts. Only thing is: I am doing it regularly. Rehash. Balderdash? No. Rehash.
When I ask the elder if he recalls his brother’s previous performance: he hardly takes any interest, though he nods. He’s more concerned about acnes on his face. The younger is busy examining his image in the mirror. I talk about covering the window pane with newspapers. The elder is in agreement.
The younger appears to be dreamy and lost in the thought before they leave.
The Geography chapter was brief. They ask about China. China has been in the news. They might have heard the news.
We study a bar graph which has relative comparison of countries with biggest geographical areas in the world.
The elder comments on the small size of country in the map shown. I take note of this and start discussion on how small we actually are in comparison to the area of a country. Then I upscale the discussion by using refrences to galaxies, solar systems and universe. He asks if galaxies blast. He might have heard of the Big Bang. I briefly tell him about Quasars, formation of stars and hypothetical universe.
I tell him how we really don’t know much about anything. I tell him how no single human being knows not more than bits and pieces. Even collective knowledge of humanity is much less compared to collective ignorance.
We know enough to know that we don’t.

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Leopold Bloom’s Fanciful Notions

So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and hair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choice blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in dolce far niente, not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in the dead sea floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the what? Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It’s a law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second per second. Law of falling bodies: per second per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the earth is the weight

Ulysses, James Joyce

This is a fantastic observation that touches on one of the most debated aspects of Joyce’s writing: is he mocking the subject, or the person observing the subject?
The answer is likely a bit of both. In this passage, Joyce is using Bloom to critique the “Colonial Mindset” of 1904 Dublin, while also showing Bloom’s specific psychological state.
1. Bloom’s “Elementary” Ignorance
You are right that his views on Sri Lanka are fanciful and objectively wrong. However, Joyce isn’t necessarily making Bloom “unintelligent” so much as he is making him provincial.
* The Information Gap: In 1904, the average Irishman’s knowledge of the “East” came from tea packets, missionary pamphlets, and “Exotic” travelogues.
* Intellectual Laziness: Bloom is usually very inquisitive, but here he wants to be lazy. He is projecting his own desire for a “painless” life onto a distant culture. He doesn’t want to know the real Sri Lanka; he wants to imagine a place where nobody has to work or deal with unfaithful wives.
2. Joyce’s Satire of “Orientalism”
Joyce is likely satirizing Orientalism—the tendency of Westerners to view the East as a static, mystical, and “lazy” place.
* By having Bloom think these cliché things while looking at a commercial tea shop window, Joyce is showing how global capitalism (the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company) packages and sells “exoticism” to the masses.
* Bloom is literally “buying” the marketing of the tea company as if it were a geographical fact.
3. The “Lotus Eaters” Parallel
Structurally, this chapter corresponds to the Lotus Eaters episode from the Odyssey.
* In Homer, the Lotus Eaters are people who eat a plant that makes them forget their homes and their duties.
* Bloom’s “Lotus”: For Bloom, his “lotus” is his daydreaming. He uses these “fanciful notions” about lianas and waterlilies to numb himself against the “thumping” reality of the funeral and Boylan.
4. The Science Confusion
His confusion about gravity (32 \text{ ft/s}^2) and buoyancy isn’t just a lack of education; it’s a distraction. He is throwing “facts” at his brain to stop it from thinking about Molly. It’s “Cracking curriculum”—a bit of noise to drown out his internal silence.

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The Mirror and the Molecule


My mother asked me to make tea when the cook was in the kitchen. I asked her to wait until she was done. Later, I found that she had made it herself. She offered me some. I had it when the class was over. The software version of this phone updated itself.
Students left after noting down Addition and Subtraction problems. It was the second batch. The elder solved the first batch. The younger hardly attempted them. If I again paint a picture of the younger student with my words: it would suggest how detached he seems from studies these days. We remarked on that briefly: earlier he used to do his  occasionally, now he doesn’t.


Since his rough notebook is full, He merely pulls out a page from here, another from there and without even using a pad underneath attempts to write on it as the pen makes holes into the paper. Later, he takes this paper in his hand and pokes it further with his pen. I ask him to not do that. There was still space on it, like spaces left out here and there on the pages of his notebook. He crumbled the torn page and keeps it in his bag. I ask the elder to carefully keep his drawing box into the bag lest they forget it similar to yesterday’s episode.
The elder had been making fun of the younger and despite my forbidding him from doing so he returned to it periodically throughout the class, as if, unable to control himself due to almost sadistic joy he derives from it. At once their battle begins to become too violent with steel bangles, the elder takes away the steel bangle from the younger. I ask them to be careful with that. The younger gives him three- four retaliatory blows.
Meanwhile there’s a bet about who can do 5000000-2344678 faster. I taught the technique to subtract one from both numbers before proceeding with the subtraction to the elder when the younger was absent. He uses it as a strategic advantage, quite sure that the younger was going to err on it. He places a ten rupees bet which is soon accepted by his brother though he can’t produce the money when he demands. Though I don’t promote betting I know this isn’t going anywhere. Calligraphy, calculations, homework, punctuality and any other traits which were present in the younger student have completely disappeared. The elder isn’t an ideal student yet he’s much better than the younger and he gets the solution correct with only a single digit’s error because he writes :
5000000-1= 5999999 and then after doing something similar with the other number proceeds with his substraction.
As soon as I evaluate the only subtraction problem attempted by the younger he backs off from the bet.
The elder threatens him.
“Unless you pay me, I will bear you at home or you will be trapped in some scheme created by me. I will tell others to withdraw money from you where I am supposed to pay.”
That’s just a ten rupees affair. But that’s a big deal. The morale of the younger student is already down. Yesterday, he had to make another trip to collect his bag.
This doesn’t prevent him from grooming himself. The window mirrors which are stained with calcium carbonate which was in water are a source of motivation for him more than any of my encouragement for doing his homework.
Adolescence.
The first thing he does after entering the room is to check himself thoroughly in the mirror.
Then he very eagerly asks me if his face is circular, as it appears in the school mirrors or oval. I tell him about the Dhubela museum mirrors which show tall, short, stout images to visitors. I tell him that his face is not circular in shape. At this point the elder also grooms his hair. Even his face isn’t circular.
I had to request the younger one to not touch his hair anymore. The elder is almost sleepy as I read Laws of Motion. The chapter is about motion. There’s an introduction about Galileo. It’s detailed. It tells how he actually wanted to do Maths but his father wanted him to become a doctor. It’s surprising there were universities in Italy even five hundred years ago. He published a book on work based on Archimedes at first. His heart wasn’t in the study of Medicine.
The younger student exclaims about the incident being in 1564-1586 : it was five hundred years ago! He’s almost right. I consider it a positive sign. At least he’s taking some interest. It’s not.
He waves his arms menacingly, as if, half baked understanding of what I am reading in his textbook is to be used to feed his:
Prophet
Fundamental dogmatic violent wings
Narcissistic hero.
He eagerly awaits until I reach the passage describing why we feel a shock when gun fires a bullet. At this point the elder tells with confidence how he once fired a small spherical pellet at a bucket and it created a hole in it. I am teaching them the third law of motion:
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
It’s by Sir Issac Newton.
The elder casually comments about the nature of experiments done by Newton to reach these conclusions.
We see a picture in which a boy is jumping from a small boat to a wooden block. The picture is casually made. It’s not an illustration. It was supposed to give a hint. It wasn’t a drawing competition. I wanted the younger one to draw pictures like he used to do before. In previous classes. He’s more concerned with his hairstyle.
He interjects about friction when it’s mentioned in the textbook. I describe it to him. They readily grasp how sudden breaks or movement of the bus shows us “Inertia” of rest and moment.
Reading Hindi text feels slightly different. There are numerical problems based on the Newton’s laws of motion.
F=ma
And relationships between initial and final velocities with acceleration, time and displacement. We skip these because they’re not oriented to attempt them.
The chapter is covered faster than they expected. We continue with the practice of Algebra. Before moving out they check Instagram feed. When I ask if the younger student would need the smartphone next year there’s no sudden discussion. They have a good acceptance about how things have been going on in this regard.

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Joyce, Nolan, Tolstoy: The Idea of Simultaneity

The very thing that makes Ulysses the “Big Bang” of modern storytelling. While Joyce didn’t invent the idea of multiple plots, he refined the technique of simultaneity—showing exactly what different people are doing at the same “absolute” moment—in a way that feels like a precursor to the editing in Inception or Dunkirk.
Prior to Joyce, writers used parallel timelines, but they usually served the plot rather than the concept of time itself.
1. The Victorian “Meanwhile” (Dickens & Tolstoy)
In the 19th century, writers like Charles Dickens used parallel plots extensively (A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House).
* The Style: Dickens would follow one character for three chapters, then write, “Leaving Mr. Pip to his reflections, we now return to…”
* The Difference: This is linear parallel storytelling. It’s like a relay race where one runner finishes their leg before the camera moves to the next. Joyce, like Nolan, prefers the simultaneous cut, where the two timelines are “vibrating” against each other at once.
2. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
Tolstoy was a master of the “cross-cut” between the urban tragedy of Anna and the rural spiritual quest of Levin.
* Joyce’s Reference: Joyce admired Tolstoy’s “stream of consciousness” (especially in the final moments of Anna Karenina). However, Tolstoy’s timelines are broad; Joyce’s are measured by the minute.
3. Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (The Agricultural Fair)
This is perhaps the most direct “ancestor” to Joyce’s style. In a famous scene, Flaubert intercuts a romantic seduction with the shouting of prize-winning livestock at a fair.
* The Effect: It’s a “spatial” cross-cut. By putting two unrelated events in the same paragraph, Flaubert creates irony. This is the “God’s eye view” that Nolan uses when he cuts between the different levels of the dream in Inception.
The “Nolan-esque” Innovation: The Synchronized Watch
What Joyce did that was truly new (and what Nolan mimics) is Synchronicity.
In Chapter 10, Wandering Rocks, Joyce gives us 19 short vignettes.
* The Technique: He will describe a character walking down a street, and in the middle of the paragraph, he’ll insert a single sentence about a bell ringing across town or a “crumpled throwaway” floating in the river.
* The Purpose: To show that all these people are trapped in the same “block” of time. It’s exactly like the Interstellar “tesseract” moment where all times and places exist in one physical structure.
The Cinema Factor
Joyce was obsessed with the early cinema (he actually opened the first cinema in Dublin, the Volta). He realized that film could do something books couldn’t: The Jump Cut. Ulysses is his attempt to make a book behave like a movie camera, cutting between Stephen on the beach and Bloom at the butcher shop without needing a narrator to explain the transition.

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Bag

After they left I had to make a call to their house as the younger one had forgotten to carry his bag with him. A couple arrived as they were leaving. I was latching the door and they commented on that-asking me to unlatch it. I let it stay open. The lady entered first and asked where my mother was, followed by the gentleman. I told her that she was visiting her mother. They stayed for about fifteen minutes complaining about the tenants in another building which is adjacent to their yard. They had complained about it before it seems though I wasn’t aware of it. When I tell them that –it doesn’t please them. I kept listening to the rest of the conversation with patience until my grandmother arrived with my uncle. They started talking to them. Grandmother was aware of the issue and expressed her concern about the lack of the resolution of the issue.
The younger student arrived when halftime of the class was over. The elder again had a smelly socks problem. I took him out and asked him to wash his feet by giving him detergent powder and water.
As soon as he arrived he showed me a cream for his acne issue. It had cost him one twenty rupees.The printed cost was one thirty rupees. The younger one read it correctly, yet I read it for the elder just to confirm.  I read the procedure on its packet for its application.
Then we worked on an English workbook. First we did some questions on passages from the textbook, then on some questions based on verses and then on the Grammar portion which had jumbled words to arrange in proper sentence structures as well as some questions where tense needed to be changed. There were some other questions which needed to be changed into negative or interrogative types.
They were quarreling with each other and even the elder brother appeared difficult to manage. They didn’t attend the class yesterday and there was someone to inspect the school today which meant they were allowed to return back later than usual today.
The younger student was looking into the mirror and playing with a fake plastic pearl. The elder was busy removing dirt from the nails of his feet. The cook arrived. My mother had asked me to tell her about the vegetables that were needed to be prepared this evening.
I had organised utensils in the kitchen, mopped the verandah floor and served tea for parents earlier. The younger student had again used red ink to complete just a portion of his homework on a torn page. It was an application for leave.
I gave them some homework and the class was over. The elder showed me a picture of his friend on Instagram. He was a student who used to study here in my classes.

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Is Rhythm The Only Word Without Vowels?

Actually, that trivia fact is a bit of a linguistic “near-miss.” Whether it’s true depends entirely on how you define a vowel.
The “Y” Factor
In the word rhythm, the letter y is functioning as a vowel. Linguistically, we distinguish between vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u) and vowel sounds. Since y in “rhythm” creates the sound /ɪ/, it is technically a vowel in that context.
The “No-Vowel-Letter” Rivals
If the trivia meant “words without a, e, i, o, or\ u,” then rhythm is certainly the most famous, but it has plenty of company:
* Symphony, Nymph, Glyphs, Gypsy, Myrrh, and Dry.
* Tsktsk (the sound of disapproval) is often cited as the longest word with zero vowel letters, though it’s an onomatopoeic interjection.
* Crwth and Cwm: These are legitimate English words (found in major dictionaries) borrowed from Welsh. In these cases, w acts as the vowel.
Etymology: Rhythm
* Origin: From the Greek ῥυθμός (rhuthmos).
* Meaning: It comes from the root ῥέω (rheō), meaning “to flow.”
* Context: This connects beautifully back to our Ulysses discussion. Stephen is trapped in the “jerks of verse” (the mechanical rhythm) while trying to find the “flow” (the rheo) of his own life.

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Making of Ulysses

Those two stories—the daily grind of teaching and the grand legal battle for the soul of literature—represent the two poles of Joyce’s life: the struggle to survive and the struggle to be heard.
1. The Berlitz School: Joyce the Teacher
While writing about Stephen’s “school kip,” Joyce was living his own version of it in Trieste.
* The Method: The Berlitz method was “direct immersion”—no translation allowed. Joyce had to teach English using only English.
* The Students: His classes were a mix of naval officers, wealthy socialites, and shopkeepers. One of his students was the famous writer Italo Svevo, who eventually became a close friend and a model for Leopold Bloom.
* The “Boredom”: Joyce hated the repetition. He often arrived late or spent the lesson gossiping about Irish politics. However, this job gave him the perfect “ear” for how language is actually spoken, which he used to create the incredibly realistic dialogue in Ulysses.
2. United States v. One Book Called Ulysses (1933)
This is one of the most important court cases in literary history. After years of being smuggled into the US in brown paper wrappers, the book finally faced a judge.
* The Strategy: Random House (the publisher) wanted to get caught. they literally sent a copy through customs so it would be seized, allowing them to sue the government.
* Judge John M. Woolsey: He was a sophisticated, literate judge. He spent weeks reading the book.
* The Verdict: In a landmark decision, Woolsey ruled that the book was not obscene. He wrote that while it was “somewhat emetic” (made you want to vomit) in places, it was not “aphrodisiac” (meant to cause lust).
* The Famous Quote: Woolsey stated that Joyce was attempting to show how the “screen of consciousness” actually works, and that his “experiments” were a sincere attempt to record the human mind. This opened the doors for modern literature to discuss the body and the psyche without fear of jail time.
Etymology of “Berlitz”
* Origin: Named after Maximilian Berlitz, a German immigrant to the US.
* Etymology: The name is a variant of Berlic, of Slavic origin (Sorbian), likely meaning “little bear” or related to a geographical location.
* Significance: In the book, Stephen feels like a “little bear” or a caged animal in his teaching job, trapped by the need for “four shining sovereigns.”
Etymology of “Obscene”
Since this word almost ended Joyce’s career:
* Origin: From the Latin obscenus.
* Etymology: Uncertain, but often thought to be from ob- (against/away) + caenum (“filth” or “mud”).
* The Irony: As we discussed, Joyce’s name Loyola (his school) means “muddy place.” He leaned into the “filth” of reality to find the “shining” truth beneath it.

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The Universal Man of Joyce

To wrap up this journey, we can see that for Joyce, the “Universal Man” is a composite of all these figures. He believed that whether you are a Greek king, a Danish prince, a Dublin advertising canvasser, or an Indian revolutionary, the core “experiments” of the human soul remain the same.
The Convergence: The “Everyman”
The diverse influences we’ve discussed—Gandhi, Shakespeare, and the Vedas—converge in Joyce’s work through three main pillars:
* The Commonality of Guilt: By linking Stephen Dedalus to Hamlet and (as you noted) Gandhi, Joyce shows that “filial guilt” is not a local Irish problem. It is the fundamental friction of the “Son” trying to become his own “Father.”
* The Language of the Soul: Joyce used the “refined” nature of Sanskrit and the “artful forging” of Greek to show that while our languages differ, our “inwit” (conscience) is a shared human constant.
* The Micro-Macro Parallel: Joyce’s theory was that a single day in Dublin (June 16, 1904) could contain the entire history of the world. A man buying a “rasher” of bacon is no less significant than Odysseus fighting a sea monster or a seeker finding “Shanti.”
The “Atman” of Leopold Bloom
In the end, Leopold Bloom is Joyce’s most “Indian” creation. Bloom possesses a quality of equanimity—the ability to stay calm and compassionate despite being an outsider and facing betrayal. While Stephen is trapped in his “agenbite of inwit,” Bloom moves through the world with a “Tathāgata-like” acceptance. He is the “Universal Man” because he accepts the “bitter mystery” of love and death without letting it crush him.
Etymology of “Atman”
To end on the core of the self:
* Origin: Sanskrit Ātman.
* Etymology: Likely from the root an, meaning “to breathe.”
* Significance: It refers to the “true self” or “soul.” In Ulysses, Joyce is essentially trying to capture the “breath” of Dublin—the Atman of a city—by recording every tiny thought and sensation of its inhabitants.

It is a fascinating bridge to cross. Joyce was a linguistic scavenger; he didn’t just stay within the “Sassenach” or Latin traditions. He looked toward the East to find a language that could hold the “universal” psyche you mentioned.
While Ulysses is deeply rooted in the Mediterranean (Greek) and the Northern (Shakespearean) traditions, Joyce’s interest in Indian philosophy blossomed fully as he moved toward his final work, Finnegans Wake.
The Sanskrit Connection: “The Word”
Joyce was deeply aware of the Vedas and the concept of Aum (Om). To a writer who believed that words were the “vibrations” of the universe, Sanskrit—the “perfected” language—was the ultimate playground.
* The Cycle of Time: Joyce was obsessed with the philosopher Giordano Bruno and Giambattista Vico, whose theories of “cyclical history” mirror the Hindu concept of Yugas. Just as the Mahabharata moves through cycles of destruction and rebirth, Ulysses (and even more so the Wake) is circular—ending where it begins.
* The Ending of the Wake: The final pages of Finnegans Wake are seen by many as a “passing over” into a state of peace. He uses the word “Tathāgata” (a title of the Buddha, meaning “one who has thus gone”). It represents the final release from the “filial guilt” and “brooding” that traps Stephen Dedalus.
The “Shanti” Connection
Joyce was a contemporary of T.S. Eliot, who famously ended his poem The Waste Land (published the same year as Ulysses, 1922) with the Sanskrit mantra:
> Shantih shantih shantih
>
Joyce and Eliot were both trying to find a “peace that passeth understanding” to heal the “bitter mysteries” of a broken Europe. For Joyce, this meant looking at the Upunishads to find a way to describe a consciousness that wasn’t just Irish or English, but human.
Etymology of “Sanskrit”
Since we are tracking the “forging” of language:
* Origin: From the Sanskrit Saṃskṛtam.
* Etymology: Composed of sam (together/completely) + kṛta (made/formed).
* Significance: It literally means “refined,” “polished,” or “highly wrought.” This is the exact goal Stephen Dedalus sets for himself: to take the “mud” of his life (remember Loyola means “muddy place”) and refine it into a “polished” work of art.

That is a profound observation. Connecting Stephen Dedalus to Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography brings a fascinating cross-cultural layer to the theme of “filial guilt.”
In The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhi famously recounts the “double shame” of being with his wife when his father passed away in the next room. Like Stephen, Gandhi carried that moment as a lifelong scar, and both men transformed that private “offence” into a public, creative, or spiritual quest.
The Psyche as a Laboratory
You’ve hit on exactly why Ulysses changed literature. Joyce didn’t just write a story; he performed an autopsy on his own soul.
* No Filters: Most authors “curate” their protagonists to be more heroic or likable. Joyce did the opposite. He gave Stephen his own arrogance, his own hygiene issues, his own “beastly” thoughts, and his most shameful memories of his mother.
* The Universal through the Particular: By being so brutally specific about his own psyche—his guilt, his lust, his intellectual vanity—Joyce tapped into a universal human experience. We recognize ourselves in Stephen’s “brooding” and Bloom’s “scientific” curiosities.
* Vulnerability as Strength: As you noted with Gandhi, there is a transformative power in admitting one’s “experiments” or failures. By putting his psyche up for examination, Joyce moved beyond “storytelling” into a form of secular confession.
The “Hamlet” Connection (Final Note)
In the end, all three—Hamlet, Stephen, and Gandhi—are men struggling with the Ghost of the Father (or Mother). They are trying to figure out how to be “truthful” to themselves while carrying the heavy weight of their ancestors’ expectations.
Etymology of “Gandhi”
In keeping with our theme of names and identity:
* Origin: From the Sanskrit gandhika.
* Etymology: It literally means “perfumer” or “grocer/seller of spices” (from gandha, meaning “smell” or “fragrance”).
* Significance: Much like “Bloom” (flower) or “Lalouette” (lark), the name is grounded in the sensory, physical world—a sharp contrast to the “wetted ashes” and “ghosts” that haunt the beginning of Ulysses.